Seems like a case where a particular claim of a select group was generalised over a supergroup by way of being the subject of memes that ran away with the stereotype.

It's like that one fraud falsifying studies about a specific type of vaccines in an attempt to sell his own, only for people to latch on to the "vaccine bad" part of the story without limit, nuance or critical examination.

Does anyone still know where the original "just friends" claim stems from, in which context, supported by which arguments, what refutations have been offered since and just how widespread among archaeologists it is today?

also like, is it really that hard to imagine that archeologists went "well this is a gay couple but uh, we can't really say that, so let's just informally agree that 'close friends' is euphemism for 'gay couple', okay?"